


Existed Already Existing

by helishdreams



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, multiverse fic, zombie!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:51:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helishdreams/pseuds/helishdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint/Natasha across five different universes.  Glimpses of what could have been, what could never have been, and what was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Existed Already Existing

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warnings: major character(s) death and graphic violence

The Avengers hole up inside the Stark building – ‘one year’s worth of power’ was Stark’s promise, and he beams around at everyone as though this was his plan all along. Natasha punches him in the face. 

‘The dead should stay dead.’ No one can argue with her there. Of course, none of them really understand.

Clint follows her, but he’s far too cheerful for her liking. _Of course_ he has a zombie apocalypse plan. 

 

They hold their own for the first little while. Setting up shelters on the top floors of buildings. Stark centralizes New York Power to the Stark Tower. But the thing with being dead is that there’s no cure. 

 

Steve’s the first to go, trying desperately to save civilians. But they all turn, and eventually, overrun, so does he. Tony silently cuts power to the building he was in, and sets the place alight. They don’t mention it again, but Tony locks himself in his lab day and night, desperate for answers. No one says anything, but Bruce joins him shortly thereafter.

It’s not a game anymore.

 

‘Don’t you ever wonder-’ Natasha cuts herself off sharply, she’s never been sentimental, and now doesn’t seem like a good time to start.

Clint glances up from his work, then slowly walks over to the couch where she’s sitting, hunched over so he can’t catch her eye. He sits down next to her, pulling her hand gently away from her, holding it lightly. 

‘Wonder what?’ He whispers.  
She shrugs, looking up at his with hard eyes betrayed by tired lines. ‘It’s dripping – my ledger – only now it’s not. They’re all alive, see?’

He does, better than anyone. But there’s nothing he can say to ease that particular concern. What can you say to someone who’s had the only constancy in their life taken away from them?

He pulls her onto his lap, and for once, she doesn’t protest. She may even have fallen asleep.

 

It’s outbreak plus two fifty. Two hundred and fifty days since that first day when the dead started knocking on their own coffins. Tony and Bruce emerge – they may, finally, have a plan. 

‘We’ll have to get them all in the same place, otherwise it’s not going to work. We have the cure, it’s distribution that’s the issue. We’re thinking sprinkler system, but that means luring all of them into the same place. The downstairs lobby is as good a place as any.’ Tony hasn’t spoken this much since –

 

Nobody questions him; of course, it’s not perfect, but nothing ever is. 

 

It goes both better and worse than expected. Stark and Thor get all the infected into the building – though they have to burn down half of New York to do so. Natasha and Clint lock the doors from the outside, both armed with cure-dipped weapons, while Hulk mans the doors from the other side, and Thor blocks the stairwell.

Natasha’s standing back to back with Clint, and in the distance she sees it. She vaguely hears Clint swear behind her, and she whispers into the com – for Thor’s ears only – ‘Get Stark out of here. It’s the Captain.’

At that second, Cap breaks into a run and Natasha and Clint turn their backs to the building. They hold eye contact for only a moment, and he inches slightly closer to her. 

Clint looses one arrow with ease and it lands in Steve’s throat. There’s no time for relief; he doesn’t slow down. Natasha does the same, sending three bullets into his chest. Natasha’s never been sentimental, and she’s never been more glad of it. Over the roar of the infected in the building at their back, she yells, ‘What now?’ 

Clint grits his teeth, and breaks into a run, Natasha hot on his tail, knife at the ready. They meet the Captain almost in slow motion – he throws his shield at them, and they scatter. Natasha runs for his front, while Clint, pulling out a knife, is at his back. She’s lunging for his throat when it happens – the shield hits its target. Suddenly the sound of glass shattering is all she can hear, but she plunges the knife into the Captain’s throat without hesitating. He roars and Clint is thrown to the ground some meters behind them. The captain grabs her tightly around the upper arm, lifting her up to his level. His eyes are wild, flicking backwards and forwards. He shakes her experimentally and she feels something pop in her shoulder. Her vision blurs with the pain as he continues to shake her by her shoulder, but the smell of death and disease brings everything into sharp relief. It sticks to her throat as he pulls her closer, leering into her face (Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?). But she knows her other hand is still clinging to the knife, and she drives it in – again and again and again, wherever she sees flesh, until the entire scene is painted red with his blood. 

The Hulk roars at her back, and she turns, letting Captain fall to the ground. She stands shakily, poking gingerly at her shoulder, and Clint is by her side in an instant. She braces herself, and he pops her shoulder back in without being asked. She offers him a small smile of gratitude. It still hurts – she’s probably torn something as well – but she’s fought with worse, and they stand their ground as the infected come pouring out of the building.

‘I told Stark we should’ve used a water gun,’ Clint mutters, loosing arrow after arrow into the crowd. 

‘At least these guys aren’t genetically engineered,’ she replies, and sees Clint smile grimly out the corner of her eye as he rushes forward to meet the crowd. This will never end well – she rushes forward to join him. It’s complete chaos, the smell is overwhelming, and all she can do is fight. When she runs out of bullets she throws her gun at the person at Clint’s back. The gun takes off most of the guy’s face, but he’s still coming, and she lurches towards him, knife dripping with blood, to attack. 

But there’s a shout and suddenly Clint’s gone. 

They’re all holding their own – Thor is spinning the hammer in circles around him and the Hulk is jumping onto any person that comes his way, apparently enjoying himself. But Natasha spins wildly, slicing everything that comes her way. She can still hear Clint’s panicked shout, replaying over and over in her mind and it punctuates her every move. 

And then she sees it – a flash of an arm she knows so well. She punches through some poor guy’s rotting skull, his head rolls to the ground with a sigh, then she reaches for that arm. 

She’s holding tight, tighter than she’s held anything before, pulls it towards her. Clint looks at her for a second, mouth agape. ‘Tash-?’ He shakes his head, pressing his free arm to his head, screwing his eyes shut in pain. She doesn’t dare speak, doesn’t dare look at the wound on his arm that’s turning already turning black, but draws him closer towards her, hand snaking up his good arm to his shoulder. He opens his eyes, and suddenly he’s looking at her with eyes that aren’t his own, and she’s been here before, once, and it scared her more than anything. But this time there’s nothing she can do – no matter how hard she hits him she knows he won’t wake up. And she’s not sentimental – but since when was love a sentiment? Passion is not sentimental. So she sends a quick prayer to his god, and pulls him flush against her.

She notices it before he does, the warmth spreading between them quicker than anything else could. She doesn’t apologise as she twists the knife inside him, and she’s content in the knowledge that he wouldn’t want her to.

There’s a single, fleeting moment of peace.

‘Agent Romanoff?’ Tony’s voice fills her head – he’s returned. She looks up at the sky to see him, suited up, holding a flamethrower. ‘I suggest you get out of here. It’s going to get messy.’ She does, leaving the knife in Clint without a second thought. He’ll need something to remember her by.

 

An hour later, it’s all over. There are charred bodies strewn everywhere, but she and Tony and Bruce and Thor are all still standing (metaphorically, they’re all sitting slouched up against the back wall of the lobby – which remained surprisingly free of death despite Tony’s master plan). They don’t speak, but she knows what she has to do. Slowly she stands, feeling every bone in her body creak in protest. But she ignores it, turning around to look at the men behind her.

‘Tony?’ She extends a hand, looking him straight in the eye. He understands, and takes it wearily, clambering up. They leave the building in silence, side by side.


End file.
